A Tory spokesman said that former MP Tom Hunt has today been expelled from the party: “Tom Hunt has been expelled from the Conservative Party following a complaints process. This process is rightly confidential.” Disciplinary processes are carried out by a party panel which makes decisions subject to ratification by the party board. The latest former Tory parliamentarian to be expelled…
Guido has been keeping tabs on the increasingly shambolic Observer relaunch – now owned by the slow-news lefties at Tortoise Media. This weekend, the paper printed a cartoon featuring Jeremy Corbyn alongside Zarah Sultana, drawn onto a Sun-Maid raisin box. Sultana wasn’t amused:
Brownfacing a box of raisins and mocking my surname.
Exactly what you’d expect from a right-wing hack who is the daughter of an aristocrat and ex-Tory MP. https://t.co/Zvyt4NlS7M pic.twitter.com/Krhvk8sLCy
— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) July 20, 2025
Having proudly published the cartoon in print, The Observer has now sheepishly deleted it from social media. Another humiliation for the paper…
UPDATE: The Observer has since issued a statement on its website: “We are genuinely sorry for causing offence and we are taking the cartoon down.”
Labour’s primary pro-growth campaign group has been strangely quiet on a major climbdown on planning reform. When the whip cracks…
Last week the government gave in to a backbench rebellion led by now-suspended backbench MP Chris Hinchcliff on its Planning and Infrastructure Bill to insert more nature-related blocks on building. The bill as now amended means developments will have to provide a strict timeline on when nature-protecting measures – like Hinkley Point’s ‘fish disco‘ – will be brought in. There will also be cases where measures in now-beefed up Environmental Delivery Plans may have to start before developments themselves. This will all bog down new construction…
The ‘Labour Growth Group usually pressures the government strongly on planning restrictions. Not this time – it has stayed curiously silent on the blocker climbdown…
The group’s chairmen have all written in the New Statesman this morning congratulating themselves for a year in action: “In just twelve months, the Labour Growth Group has evolved from a name on a letter into a determined force of reformers in Parliament, united by the urgency of the moment and a clarity about the hard choices required.” Not determined enough to actually challenge the government though…
The British media’s leading metropolitan liberals have an odd crossover with new Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa (a name change from Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the ‘kunya’ or Arabic name associated with his past jihadism). Back in February, Al Campbell and Rory Stewart flew into Damascus to platform the new President in a simpering interview for their The Rest is Politics: Leading podcast…
It certainly doesn’t look like treating al-Sharaa as an incoming centrist dad was a good idea now. As the BBC reports:
“Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government responded by deploying forces to the city. Druze residents of Suweida told the BBC they had witnessed “barbaric acts” as gunmen – government forces and foreign fighters – attacked people. Israel targeted these forces, saying they were acting to protect the Druze. Government forces withdrew and Druze and Bedouin fighters subsequently clashed. Both Druze and Bedouin fighters have been accused of atrocities over the past seven days, as well as members of the security forces and individuals affiliated with the interim government.”
Campbell later recounted the trip in an article for The New European. He tweeted at the time: “This is why we were in Syria. Long interview with fighter turned President Ahmed al-Sharaa. We discuss on RestIsPolitics tomorrow and the full interview out on LEADING Monday. Fascinating on so many levels.” Certainly proving to be an interesting choice…
Nigel Farage is in London to deliver a press conference announcing 10 law and order policies in his “six-week campaign” on crime. He’s alongside Reform’s Sarah Pochin and Westminster Councilor Laila Cunningham…
Farage will promise to build “Nightingale prisons” to house 12,400 inmates, send 10,000 of the most serious offenders to overseas jails, including in El Salvador and recruit 30,000 more police officers in five years. Expect plenty of questions on how Farage plans to pay for this…
Steve Reed has confirmed that DEFRA will abolish Ofwat and replace it with a new umbrella regulator. Speaking after Jon Cunliffe’s independent report called for the regulator to go, Reed said:
“Today I can announce that the Labour government will abolish Ofwat. In the biggest overhaul of water regulation in a generation, we will bring water functions from four different regulators into one. A single powerful regulator responsible for the entire water sector. There are four further recommendations that the government can accept immediately and I will outline those in Parliament this afternoon. The new regulator will stand firmly on the side of customers, investors, and the environment. And it will prevent the abuses of the past for customers. It will oversee investment and maintenance so hardworking British families are never again hit by the shocking bill hikes we saw last year as customers were left to pay the price of 14 years of failure by the previous government.”
Reed has an oral statement later in the Commons. The beleaguered regulator finally getting flushed. Remains to be seen whether the new one will ‘regulate for growth’…
Read the government’s release below: Continue reading “WATCH: Steve Reed Announces Abolition of Water Regulator Ofwat”
Former leader of the SNP in Westminster Ian Blackford told Times Radio why he believes Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that she spent no time in the kitchen and therefore didn’t see any of her husband’s purchases:
“She doesn’t have a passion for cooking.”